what do you mean it’s over? – Week 20

20 Weeks with Mr. Iyengar – that’s over 5 months and more than 100 hours of Yogaaa (if you count time on the mat only). Unfortunately there’s no way of measuring how much my roots have grown and my branches expanded.

Oh my… I started re-reading some of my older entries and it already seems so far away!

But I should be speaking of Week Nr. 20 here, right? I think it was characteristic of the things I learned during the past weeks and months.

A) How to really do Yoga and be Yoga, all day long.

B) How to be aware of moments when I’m really not doing or being Yoga at all and accepting that, sometimes, being aware of it is all I can do.

~*~

So, incident nr. 1: I was in class Wednesday morning, the sun hit my mat and I just was. I flowed through the whole class, carried by the waves of my breath, it was totally effortless and I carried that through the day. I went to the library and effortlessly worked as much as I felt was right and possible to do, I went home and effortlessly cooked my dinner that I ate with great pleasure and awareness. I was the picture-perfect Yogini from dawn to dusk and I think even in my sleep. It felt so good. :)

Incident Nr. 2: I come to class Friday afternoon and notice my ‚personal enemy‘ right away. She’s a pretty girl about my age, expensive Yoga clothes shipped from the U.S. and all, but what makes my inner Miss-Perfect-Yogini really howl is when she enters the room with a leather designer Yoga mat bag and takes out what I believe to be an iPhone to check the time. „Hullo?! Haven’t you heard it’s not allowed to bring cells in the Yoga room?! And WTF is wrong with you, what’s this BAG?!?!“ Then she loudly unrolls her mat next to mine and my Miss-Perfect-Yogini secretly leaps from joy of having someone to pick on for the next 75 minutes!

Right from the beginning a cellphone starts to make little bleep!-noises every 10 minutes or so. Miss-Perfect-Yogini, who is simultaneously making sure her first DownDog will look better than her neighbour’s, hears the bleep!-sound, furiously turning her head just to see Miss-iPhone-Leather-Bag in a totally unspectacular DownDog with knees bent, breathing deeply and evenly and totally oblivious of her self.

„Dammit!, she’s actually doing Yoga!“, Miss-Perfect-Yogini growls but she still thinks that Miss-iPhone is good to pick on and to compare to. So Lily spends 75 minutes calling back her Perfect-Yogini’s angry thoughts, apologizing to her neighbor and hoping the little missy on the mat next to her will be protected from the anger/fear/envy/hate-attacks of Miss-Perfect-Yogini.

Which enrages Miss-Perfect-Yogini even more, because no one even cares to listen to her, not even Lily!

She keeps on grumbling right through Savasana, which pisses Lily off because by now she really longs for 10 minutes of peace. Nah… At least the bleeping cellphone is finally out of battery. It turns out it wasn’t even Miss-iPhone-Leather-Bag’s mobile, but some 50 year old guy’s who couldn’t handle technology.

~*~

You see, even after 2 1/2 years of consistent Yoga practice and 20 weeks with Mr. Iyengar I still do think very mean and hateful things, especially when I’m on the mat. But I don’t care, because it’s all part of the Yooooga! Whee!

I celebrated my 20 weeks anniversary yesterday with 2 hours of very immersed and conscious Iyengar Yoga at home. I had to make up the lost 75 minutes at the studio. ;)

I’ll do more today and I think I’ll add a candle meditation. Because the end of my 20 weeks programme happens to coincide with the first Sunday of Advent! How cool is that?

I’m of no confession but deeply spiritual (and certainly influenced by a mostly Christian culture) and Advent is a special time for me. It reminds me of how to rely on the little light of hope and love inside of me in times of inner darkness and winter, and let it grow. It’s the beginning of something new and powerful, but it comes almost unnoticed. This force seems smaller than it is, vulnerable and in need of being taken care of – like a baby.

So I guess what I’m saying is that this is not an end at all.

I feel my Iyengar has been present on my journey of discovering Yoga and its meaning even though I never met him. I bow before my teacher with all my love and gratitude for showing the way from ignorance to understanding.

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Eine Antwort zu “what do you mean it’s over? – Week 20”

Hello Lotus, your journey continues to inspire me. I need to reread from time to time.

You are so honest with those messy „unyogic“ thoughts. But as Francois said at the last workshop I took with him, yoga is NOT about stifling or repressing emotions. It’s all about allowing them to flow but…and you know what I’m gonna say next, feeling the OPPOSITE emotions that exist within you at the same time…and that’s the connection to the core SELF that is not defined by the emotions. Hey now, THAT IS YOGA.

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dear reader,

I blog mostly in German, but you can search for "posts in English" under "kategorien" below. Also, feel free to browse the 'Lotus' section for my Yoga diary and notes, which are all in English, as well as for Yoga-related links.